Lacrosse Headline

Saturday March 27, 2010Lacrosse Falls to No. 17 Ohio State, 14-9

The Florida lacrosse team fell to 0-2 in the American Lacrosse Conference after dropping a 14-9
decision at No. 17 Ohio State on Saturday in Columbus.

The game
was back and forth early on, but Ohio State (6-3, 1-1) started the second half
with three straight goals to take a five goal lead. The Gators (6-4, 0-2) held
their own the rest of the game, but could never catch up.

The Gators
got on the board early in the first half, as Ashley Bruns (Ellicott City, Md.) snuck out from behind the goal and fired a shot past the goalie at the 21:37 mark.
Ohio State answered with two straight goals to take a 2-1 lead.

The young Gator
squad responded with three goals to regain the lead. Kitty Cullen (Rockville, Md.) found Colby Rhea (Abingdon, Md.), who made a great move to get
past her defender and finished a shot to tie the game. Bruns then spun off her
defender and scored to give UF a 3-2 lead, and Brittany Dashiell (Bel Air, Md.) ran past her defender and fired a shot into the net for a two goal lead.

A couple
of turnovers in the defensive end led to Buckeye goals and they tied the game
at 4-4 with 13:54 remaining in the half.

Defender Jamie
Reeg (Atlantis, Fla.) took a pass from midfield and ran straight to goal, scoring
her first goal of the season and giving UF a 5-4 lead, but the Gators couldnít
hold for long. The Buckeyes scored three goals in the final nine minutes of the
half and led 7-5 at the break.

Ohio State came out in the second half firing
on all cylinders, scoring three unanswered goals to take a 10-5 lead, forcing a
Florida timeout.

After the
timeout, Caroline Chesterman (South Nyack, N.Y.) redirected a pass from
Bruns to get one goal back. Less than two minutes later, the Buckeyes responded
with a goal of their own by Kelly Haggerty.

Cullen
scored off a pass from Bruns to pull Florida back within four, but Alayna
Markwordt scored for Ohio State to go up five goals. Chesterman connected with
Rhea for Florida to cut the Buckeye lead to 12-8.

After a
scoring drought of nearly 13 minutes, Ohio State took a five-goal lead at the
6:26 mark and then scored again two minutes later to take a 14-8 lead.

Janine
Hillier scored with just over three minutes remaining to cap the scoring.

The game
was very even on paper, with Florida totaling 29 shots to Ohio Stateís 30. The Gators recorded 26 ground balls, their second-highest total of the season, and
the Buckeyes had 19. Florida continued to perform well on the draw, controlling
it 14 times to OSUís 11.

Bruns led
the team with four points on two goals and two assists. Chesterman and Cullen
each had one goal and one assist. Goalie Cara Canington had a season-high six
ground balls and nine saves in the net. Dashiell had five ground balls and four
draw controls.

Florida returns home for a matchup on
Tuesday night against Oregon at 6:30 p.m. at Donald R. Dizney Stadium. They
will host their first ALC game of the year when Penn State travels to Gainesville next Saturday.